“Lawless” is what you might call a cracking yarn, if you used such terms to describe movies. I usually don’t, but for some reason this just fits. It’s what we used to call a B picture, this one; its ambitions don’t extend too much — or at least aren’t successful — beyond a desire to entertain. But it entertains quite a bit, even though you kind of find yourself wishing that this cast with a creative team of this pedigree bothered to extend themselves further. But as far as late-summer trifles go, this one will do.

And what a violent trifle it is; “Lawless” is a tale of gangster violence and bootleggers during Prohibition, here seen in Franklin County, Va., which according to the map is just about the middle of nowhere, if not a few counties over. Franklin County is widely thought of during Prohibition as “the wettest county in the world,” so prevalent are its stills, and its residents eke out a decent living selling to everyone up to and including the law.

Chief among the distillers are the Bondurant brothers, three men with a reputation of invincibility, thanks to the eldest brother, Forrest (Tom Hardy, here finally without the mask he wore as Bane in “The Dark Knight Rises,” yet hardly any more expressive), and his tendency to survive scrapes that would kill lesser men. The middle brother, Howard (Jason Clarke, “Public Enemies”), is the muscle of the operation; Forrest is the cautious, calculating, mumbling center. The youngest, Jack (Shia LeBeouf), is our narrator. He’s not much involved in the family business, though he’d like to be.

And he finds that he might regret that decision when the permissive relationship the moonshiners share with the local police is suddenly upended with the arrival in the county of a federal presence, personified by Special Agent Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce). They want to skim off the top. The Bondurants refuse, on principle. Rakes doesn’t take kindly to their refusal, and before long, blood is shed and the county is torn into upheaval, with the nonviolent Jack thrust into situations where his sensitive nature may not keep him or his family alive.

Into this combustible mix: a city woman, Maggie (Jessica Chastain, “The Help”), who fled Chicago for a “quiet life” that she doesn’t quite find in Franklin County; and a local preacher’s daughter (Mia Wasikowska, “Alice in Wonderland”) who Jack takes a shine to. There’s also a violent Chicago gangster (Gary Oldman) whose business dealings sometimes interact with the Bondurants.

The movie is certainly overstuffed, at the expense sometimes of narrative momentum. The film ambles, but it ambles with such style and in the presence of these actors that you hardly mind it. Anyone fond of gangster movies in general will find “Lawless” a worthy entry into that genre, with likeable, if not always relatable, protagonists and a truly repugnant villain in Pearce’s character.

Pearce plays his eyebrow-less foppish dandy of a federal agent as contemptuous and cruel, and he goes so over the top with it that the character almost belongs in a far more exaggerated film. How you respond to Rakes might be a litmus test of how you respond to the movie as a whole, but as a fan of Pearce, I enjoyed watching him go all-in with a repulsive character, and he’s a good foil for our protagonists.

The Bondurants, however, remain somewhat enigmatic throughout. The film is told from Jack’s point of view, so we see his brothers the way he would; it’s unfortunate that Hardy remains so aloof and distant for basically the duration of the film, though, even though it’s in keeping with the sort of character he plays. Hardy’s a wonderfully expressive actor — see last year’s “Warrior,” if you haven’t, for an example of that — and while he’s fine in “Lawless,” he feels detrimentally restrained. Even his scenes with the lively Chastain, so great in her 2011 breakout year and so welcome a presence here, feel a bit too distant.

The odd man out, so to speak, in this cast, is LaBeouf; for an actor who made such a leap to the A-list in big-budget filmmaking so quickly, I don’t personally know many fans of his. He’s perfectly fine in “Lawless,” pulling his weight from scene to scene and basically serving as an emotional anchor for the film. When he’s called upon to do heavy lifting, he does it well. I don’t know that I agree that his oddly negative reputation is deserved; I think that if he made fewer “Transformers” movies and more things like “Lawless,” serious people would take him more seriously. If this is the first step toward an actor’s rehabilitation, it’s a good one.

The director, John Hillcoat, previously made less commercially minded films like “The Proposition” and the Cormac McCarthy adaptation “The Road,” with his collaborator, the musician Nick Cave, providing the score for all three of his films and the screenplay for this one and “The Propositon.” Cave’s screenplay errs toward the side of cliche (you will understand exactly what purpose a character played by Dane DeHaan of this year’s “Chronicle” will serve moments upon seeing him), but Hillcoat mostly dials it back (with the exception, of course, of Pearce), providing a classical sheen. Cave also supplies the film’s score with Warren Ellis and a number of surprising bluegrass-style covers of punk songs, like The Velvet Underground’s “White Light/White Heat.” That’s maybe the film in a nutshell; “Lawless” doesn’t do much new for the gangster film, but it’s a hell of an awesome cover.

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“Lawless” is what you might call a cracking yarn, if you used such terms to describe movies. I usually don’t, but for some reason this just fits. It’s what we used to call a B picture, this one; its ambitions don’t extend too much — or at least aren’t successful — beyond a desire to entertain. But it entertains quite a bit, even though you kind of find yourself wishing that this cast with a creative team of this pedigree bothered to extend themselves further. But as far as late-summer trifles go, this one will do.

And what a violent trifle it is; “Lawless” is a tale of gangster violence and bootleggers during Prohibition, here seen in Franklin County, Va., which according to the map is just about the middle of nowhere, if not a few counties over. Franklin County is widely thought of during Prohibition as “the wettest county in the world,” so prevalent are its stills, and its residents eke out a decent living selling to everyone up to and including the law.

Chief among the distillers are the Bondurant brothers, three men with a reputation of invincibility, thanks to the eldest brother, Forrest (Tom Hardy, here finally without the mask he wore as Bane in “The Dark Knight Rises,” yet hardly any more expressive), and his tendency to survive scrapes that would kill lesser men. The middle brother, Howard (Jason Clarke, “Public Enemies”), is the muscle of the operation; Forrest is the cautious, calculating, mumbling center. The youngest, Jack (Shia LeBeouf), is our narrator. He’s not much involved in the family business, though he’d like to be.

And he finds that he might regret that decision when the permissive relationship the moonshiners share with the local police is suddenly upended with the arrival in the county of a federal presence, personified by Special Agent Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce). They want to skim off the top. The Bondurants refuse, on principle. Rakes doesn’t take kindly to their refusal, and before long, blood is shed and the county is torn into upheaval, with the nonviolent Jack thrust into situations where his sensitive nature may not keep him or his family alive.

Into this combustible mix: a city woman, Maggie (Jessica Chastain, “The Help”), who fled Chicago for a “quiet life” that she doesn’t quite find in Franklin County; and a local preacher’s daughter (Mia Wasikowska, “Alice in Wonderland”) who Jack takes a shine to. There’s also a violent Chicago gangster (Gary Oldman) whose business dealings sometimes interact with the Bondurants.

The movie is certainly overstuffed, at the expense sometimes of narrative momentum. The film ambles, but it ambles with such style and in the presence of these actors that you hardly mind it. Anyone fond of gangster movies in general will find “Lawless” a worthy entry into that genre, with likeable, if not always relatable, protagonists and a truly repugnant villain in Pearce’s character.

Pearce plays his eyebrow-less foppish dandy of a federal agent as contemptuous and cruel, and he goes so over the top with it that the character almost belongs in a far more exaggerated film. How you respond to Rakes might be a litmus test of how you respond to the movie as a whole, but as a fan of Pearce, I enjoyed watching him go all-in with a repulsive character, and he’s a good foil for our protagonists.

The Bondurants, however, remain somewhat enigmatic throughout. The film is told from Jack’s point of view, so we see his brothers the way he would; it’s unfortunate that Hardy remains so aloof and distant for basically the duration of the film, though, even though it’s in keeping with the sort of character he plays. Hardy’s a wonderfully expressive actor — see last year’s “Warrior,” if you haven’t, for an example of that — and while he’s fine in “Lawless,” he feels detrimentally restrained. Even his scenes with the lively Chastain, so great in her 2011 breakout year and so welcome a presence here, feel a bit too distant.

The odd man out, so to speak, in this cast, is LaBeouf; for an actor who made such a leap to the A-list in big-budget filmmaking so quickly, I don’t personally know many fans of his. He’s perfectly fine in “Lawless,” pulling his weight from scene to scene and basically serving as an emotional anchor for the film. When he’s called upon to do heavy lifting, he does it well. I don’t know that I agree that his oddly negative reputation is deserved; I think that if he made fewer “Transformers” movies and more things like “Lawless,” serious people would take him more seriously. If this is the first step toward an actor’s rehabilitation, it’s a good one.

The director, John Hillcoat, previously made less commercially minded films like “The Proposition” and the Cormac McCarthy adaptation “The Road,” with his collaborator, the musician Nick Cave, providing the score for all three of his films and the screenplay for this one and “The Propositon.” Cave’s screenplay errs toward the side of cliche (you will understand exactly what purpose a character played by Dane DeHaan of this year’s “Chronicle” will serve moments upon seeing him), but Hillcoat mostly dials it back (with the exception, of course, of Pearce), providing a classical sheen. Cave also supplies the film’s score with Warren Ellis and a number of surprising bluegrass-style covers of punk songs, like The Velvet Underground’s “White Light/White Heat.” That’s maybe the film in a nutshell; “Lawless” doesn’t do much new for the gangster film, but it’s a hell of an awesome cover.